Narwhal List Fall update: New companies and major movements

We are excited to release the fall 2018 update to the Narwhal List, Canada’s most financially attractive private technology companies. With some significant fundraising activity over the past few months, we have seen some companies jump up the list as well as some significant new entries.

New Narwhals

Kira Systems, an AI-powered software solution that automatically identifies and extracts information from contracts, has joined the list at #9 following a $50 million Series A from Insight Venture Partners this September.

Ecobee, a home automation company with products ranging from smart thermostats to light switches, has joined the list at #14 after raising a $96 million Series C led by Amazon Alexa Fund.

Narwhals on the move

Wealthsimple has moved from #6 on the list to being in a virtual tie with Ritual for #1. The company, a technology-driven investment manager that aims to change the way Canadians invest, raised $51 million from Power Financial Corporation to boost its financial velocity to 28.3 million dollars per year.

LEAUGE, the Toronto-based mobile-first platform to connect employees to a network of health services and benefits, has jumped from #34 to #6 after raising a $47 million Series B. Led by BDC Venture Capital and including other Canadian investors such as RBC Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Real Ventures, and TELUS Ventures, the financing raised the company’s financial velocity to 19.1 million dollars per year.

Hopper, a mobile application that uses data to predict and analyze airfares, recently more than doubled its total investment with one of the largest VC deals in Canadian history and hopped from #22 to #8 on the Narwhal List. It’s $100 million Series D from Accomplice, BDC Capital, Brightspark Ventures, and more, raised its financial velocity to 17.7 million dollars per year.

The Narwhal List is a compilation of Canada’s fastest scaling private tech companies. We compile companies based on their financial velocity, or the amount of funding a firm has raised over the number of years it has been in existence. If a company wants to scale to world class it will need to acquire significant investment capital. The more it acquires, the more it can grow. And the faster it can acquire capital, the faster it can grow (you can read more on this in our report The Rich Get Richer). So financial velocity is a way to track private companies who are trying to scale to world class size.

The data used for our calculations comes from CB Insights and is up to date to October 9, 2018. You can view the full list here.